The Permanent Forum welcomes the establishment and development of indigenous-led funds as a self-governance practice, which promote funding access to indigenous communities and shift power relations in donor and philanthropy processes. The Forum invites the broad donor and philanthropic community to support these initiatives.
The Permanent Forum urges the World Food Programme to respect the habitual diet of indigenous peoples and to avoid the introduction of foreign foods of low nutritional quality in indigenous peoples’ communities. Furthermore, the Permanent Forum urges the World Food Programme to ensure that its methods of intervention are sensitive to indigenous peoples’ social fabric and respectful of their perceptions of the humanitarian-development nexus.
With a view to establishing a partnership with the United Nations Forum on Forests to work in the area of traditional forest-related knowledge and social and cultural aspects of forests pertaining to indigenous peoples, the Forum appoints Pavel Sulyandziga, member of the Forum, as Special Rapporteur to work with the United Nations Forum on Forests, without financial implications, and to report on that subject to the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues at its fifth session
The Permanent Forum decides to appoint Carlos Mamani Condori, Elisa Canqui Mollo and Pavel Sulyandziga, members of the Forum, as special rapporteurs to conduct a study, without financial implications, on indigenous peoples and corporations. The study will examine the existing mechanisms and practices, review policies on indigenous peoples, examine good practices and submit a report to the Forum at its eighth session in 2009. The Forum calls upon indigenous peoples’ representatives, States, corporations, international financial institutions and the United Nations system, in particular the United Nations Development Programme and the Global Compact, to engage in active cooperation with the special rapporteurs.
The Forum recommends that the United Nations Forum on Forests develop effective means to monitor and verify the participation of indigenous peoples in forest policy-making and sustainable forest management, and establish a mechanism, with the participation of indigenous peoples, to assess the performance of governmental and intergovernmental commitments and obligations to uphold and respect indigenous peoples’ rights.
The Permanent Forum urges States to include indigenous peoples in decision-making processes in all areas of water management, including commercial use, irrigation and environmental management, and to ensure that such decision-making processes are consistent with the principles of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, in particular its article 32, under which the free and informed consent of indigenous peoples is required prior to the approval of any project affecting their lands or territories and other resources.
The Permanent Forum urges the World Bank to work on a sustained basis with the Government of Cambodia to effectively implement the management action plan resulting from the inspection panel case for the “Forest concession management and control pilot project”, which includes the termination of all existing logging concessions and the promotion of equitable and sustainable alternatives for forest management.
The Forum recommends that the agencies and bodies of the United Nations, the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank, the Asian Development Bank, the African Development Bank and the International Monetary Fund rethink the concept of development, with the full participation of indigenous peoples in development processes, taking into account the rights of indigenous peoples and the practices of their traditional knowledge.
The Permanent Forum, bearing in mind the importance of the right of indigenous peoples to food sovereignty and security, invites Member States to consider the possibility of announcing an international year of camelids with the aim of drawing attention to the management of lands, territories and resources and for the breeding of camelids.
The Forum urges international donor agencies, regional organizations and States to incorporate indigenous people’s issues in the formulation of sector policies for development cooperation and to address indigenous peoples’ issues in their joint development programmes and projects to ensure that indigenous peoples and their issues are effectively mainstreamed into their work.
The Forum encourages the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (FAO) to recognize the importance of and emphasize support for indigenous agricultural systems, including forestry, shifting cultivation, fisheries, livestock, pastoralism and hunting-gathering systems, and their associated biodiversity, foods, knowledge systems and cultures. It encourages FAO to promote the responsible use of culturally appropriate agricultural inputs and technology so as to protect the traditional livelihoods of indigenous peoples
The Permanent Forum calls on the organizers of the forthcoming meetings of Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the Convention on Biological Diversity and the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification in Those Countries Experiencing Serious Drought and/or Desertification, Particularly in Africa to ensure the full and effective participation of indigenous peoples, virtually or in person, in the meetings that are to be organized later in 2021. The Forum encourages donors and civil society organizations to support indigenous peoples’ participation in these events.